主题：【信息流行病】新冠超额死亡数据的悖论 -- 夕曦

The COVID-19 pandemic has produced excess deaths, the number of all-cause fatalities exceeding the expected number in any period.

We applied autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) models to US Census populations (2014-2019) and seasonal ARIMA (sARIMA) models to Massachusetts

Department of Health all-cause mortality statistics (from January 5, 2015, through February 8, 2020) to account for prepandemic age and mortality trends and to project the age stratified (0-17, 18-49, 50-64,and≥65 years) weekly population and the weekly number of expected deaths in Massachusetts during the pandemic period

Excess mortality for each period was defined as the difference between the observed deaths and point estimate for sARIMA-determined expected deaths.

Others have reported that the Omicron variant may cause milder COVID-19. If true, increased all-cause excess mortality observed during the Omicron wave in Massachusetts may reflect a higher mortality product (ie, a moderately lower infection fatality rate multiplied by far higher infection rate).

the present findings indicate that a highly contagious (although relatively milder) SARS-CoV-2 variant can quickly confer substantial excess mortality, even in a highly vaccinated and increasingly immune population.